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My wedding story is one I will ever remain proud of.

It is the type of wedding that many girls will hardly desire to have. Yet, I take great pride in sharing the story anytime any day!

I met my husband during our National Youth Service (NYSC) program in Zamfara State.

After our service year, we went through a one and a half years of courtship to assertain our compatibility and finally had our wedding.

The wedding? Hmmmmm (smiles), one of its kind!

I came from a large family and I am among the youngest. My husband on the other hand, is the first son. So, our families anticipated an obvious celebration and party-like wedding for us.

Did they get that? Let’s see!

Barely two months to the wedding we were yet not sure of the wedding budget.

I and my husband were at the very early stage of our lives and career when we were about to wed. We were beginners and had very limited resources.

Trust me, the very last thing on our mind then was spending the available funds on a wedding party.

So, I had no choice than to turn to overnight wedding planner.

I personally developed not less than five different wedding budgets with each one being obviously less expensive than the previous one.

I would develop a wedding budget, after which we would meet and brainstorm on it.

We continued like that until we had like five wedding budgets that were still higher than what we wanted to spend on a wedding.

Finally after much brain work (cracking of brain) and diverse mathematical permutations, we came up with some conclusions.

The conclusions

We would wed on a week day (not weekend): We adopted this because both of us were “workers” in our different church branches and would likely pool a crowd bigger than our budget. So, after confiding in our counseling pastor, he advised us to wed on a week day rather than a weekend in order to control crowd. So, we choose a Thursday.

There would be no reception. However, light refreshment pack would be given after the church service: For reception to happen, there had to be venue, cake and other expenses which we were not ready for. So, we scrapped reception “fiam”! (laughs)

We would not print invitation cards: Yes! there were no invitation cards. You may see it as being extreme but sincerely, we didn’t really care then. (and wouldn’t have cared even now! (winks).

We would not borrow money to finance our wedding: We resolved that we would not borrow money to wed. My husband always said something then, that the marriage is more important than the wedding. I couldn’t agree less! We knew then that with God’s helps, we would have what we needed to sustain the marriage and we were not ready to jeopardize that by incurring debt through the wedding.

We found love in each other’s sight and all we wanted was to be together.

So, whether there was a wedding party or not, that didn’t matter to us. All that mattered was let there be a wedding and let the marriage begin!

When I and my husband came up with the above decisions, it was met with strong oppositions from our respective families but love won at last.

At the end of the day, everybody realised that it was our wedding, our marriage and our show.

It has been over eight years since the wedding and the marriage keeps getting better every day.

Eight years after

Eight years after

The priority:

Finance is a major area of contention in relationships.

It grieves my heart whenever I see mature men and women in serious relationships with resources/means to sustain the marriage but wasting precious time in the name of looking for huge money to finance the wedding ceremony.

When we were preparing for our wedding, my husband would always say that we should concentrate and pay more attention on building the marriage than the wedding.

Do you know why?

It is because the wedding is just for a few hours while the marriage is for a lifetime!

These days, many young couples pay so much attention to the wedding at the detriment of the marriage.

Don’t get me wrong. If you have the cash and you so wish, please spend it to have the wedding of your dreams but it should not be at the detriment of the marriage itself.

Some couples go to the extent of borrowing money to finance their wedding.

What a start!

Thereby laying a foundation of debt for the marriage.

When you know that you don’t have all the money in the world but that you have something you are doing that can sustain the marriage financially, and you are in a serious relationship with somebody and both of you are convinced that you are meant for each other, then why waste precious time waiting for an elaborate wedding ceremony when you can make it simple and move on.

Wonderful!!!!! This is the beginning of greater things. You are the best wedding and life planner….If only people will understand that a few people will remember how great your wedding was while marriage is for life. Its success or failure will always be remembered. Nobody is celebrating the wedding of the oldest married couple in the world….but everybody is celebrating their marriage. May we learn and understand wisdom. Good article.

In fact, the kind of attention and resources used on weddings these days at the expense of the marriage itself is disturbing. I wish young people should learn to prioritise aright. Thank you sir for the remarks.

The truth is that in trying to please the society, most intending couples have become slaves to d larger society to their own detriment. Planning for a flamboyant wedding when you cannot afford it is suicidal for any intending couple.

I totally agree with you. Many intending couples go beyond their financial comfort zones in trying to please family and friends by having flamboyant wedding ceremonies . I wish they would realise that marriage, which is for a lifetime is more important than the wedding, which is for only a few hours. Thank you for dropping by.